Travelex kicks off its multimillion pound ITV World Cup sponsorship campaign on May 31st 2002 with a series of programme idents featuring clips from previous World Cups.

The ‘World Cup Firsts’ campaign, created by LIDA, part of the M&C Saatchi village, taps into fans’ fascination with football history and trivia.

Using selected footage from the very first World Cup in Uraguay1930 to France 1998, the idents are designed to stimulate armchair debate among viewers by letting them know what World Cup First they are seeing, such as ‘The first penalty to be scored in a final, without providing full details.

The idents will appear during the ad breaks as well as at the beginning and end of the games and the daily highlights on ITV. To satisfy the football fact hungry viewers, the answers to ‘ World Cup Firsts’ will be revealed on both the ITV World Cup and Travelex websites the day after the idents are screened.

The ‘World Cup Firsts’ concept links with Travelex’s position as the ‘First name for foreign exchange’ through an end frame at the beginning and end of programme idents. The TV idents are supported by a fully integrated campaign using radio, on-line, press advertising & promotions, and PR. A more specific campaign promoting Travelex Corporate Foreign Exchange will run in the FT throughout the World Cup.

Anthony Wagerman, Head of Group Marketing & Communications at Travelex says ‘The sponsorship has been created to raise awareness of Travelex in the UK following our acquisition of Thomas Cook Global and Financial Services in 2001. The ident creative idea gives us a platform to do this by establishing a link to the biggest sporting event in the World’

Marius Bartsch, Account Director at LIDA comments ‘It was important for us to create idents showing obvious empathy with football fans. By engaging the viewer with the idents we effectively engage them with the Travelex Brand, and in doing so help to make Travelex famous’.

For further information please contact:

Marius Bartsch
LIDA
T: 020 7544 3700

Anthony Wagerman
Travelex
T: 020 7400 4084